Abortion pill: Anti-abortion group urges Supreme Court to revive mifepristone restrictions

WASHINGTON – A coalition of anti-abortion groups asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reinstate restrictions on a common abortion pill called mifepristone a day before the high court is set to hand down a decision in the emergency appeal. 

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is challenging the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone in 2000, told the Supreme Court it should halt actions by the agency that made access to the drug easier while the lawsuit continues. 

Among the restrictions at stake in the case: Whether pregnant people need to get a prescription from a doctor and schedule multiple office visits or whether they can access the drug through the mail or through telehealth.

What happens next at the Supreme Court on mifepristone? 

• The Supreme Court is expected to rule by midnight Wednesday on a request to halt the restrictions imposed on mifepristone by lower courts. Justice Samuel Alito handed down an administrative stay Friday that halted the restrictions for five days, so the court had time to consider the emergency appeal.  
• The Supreme Court is considering a decision last week from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that sided with the Biden administration on the issue of whether the 23-year-old Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone could continue for the time being. But the court balked at later actions the FDA took to ease access to the drug, including the ability to access it through the mail. 

What Biden aides, anti-abortion groups are telling the Supreme Court 

In its emergency appeal Friday, attorneys for the federal government used unusually strong language to describe what they see as the potential consequences of allowing the 5th Circuit's decision – and thus the restrictions on the drug – to stand. 

The government decried what it called "unprecedented lower court orders" that it said countermanded "FDA's scientific judgment" and unleashed "regulatory chaos." The rushed and "scattershot course of this litigation," the government said, "is profoundly unsettling to drug sponsors, healthcare providers, patients, and the public."

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The FDA, the group said, "brazenly flouted the law and applicable regulations, disregarded holes and red flags in their own safety data, intentionally evaded judicial review, and continually placed politics above women’s health."

The FDA has said the drug is effective and has said it is as safe as common over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen.

 The legal fight over mifepristone has brought more confusion to the issue of abortion as people are grappling with quickly shifting rules about what's permitted. The Supreme Court last year overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that made abortion legal nationwide.  

Medication abortion accounts for about half of all U.S. abortions. The availability of mifepristone has taken on added significance as some states have banned abortion following the Supreme Court's decision in 2022.